Recalling that the Council, at its Hundred and Twelfth Session
in June 1997, requested, on the basis of the recommendations of
the Programme and Finance Committees, that options for an adapted
medium-term planning process of FAO's activities be examined,

Noting the recommendations of the Council, at its Hundred and
Thirteenth Session in November 1997, based on the joint
recommendation of the Programme and Finance Committees at their
Joint Meeting of September 1997, that a new medium-term planning
process should be introduced in a flexible and step-by-step
manner and that, meanwhile, the Conference should authorize the
phased implementation of the medium-term planning process on an
experimental basis in the course of the 1998-99 biennium,

Noting the recommendation of the Council, at its Hundred and
Thirteenth Session in November 1997, that the Basic Texts of the
Organization should be amended immediately in order to abolish
the outline Programme of Work and Budget and the Joint Meeting of
the Programme and Finance Committee early in the second year of
the biennium to consider that outline,

Realizing that these amendments would be without prejudice to
the need for further amendments to be incorporated into the Basic
Texts of the Organization, at a subsequent stage and in the light
of the outcome of the implementation of a new medium-term
planning process on an experimental basis:

Adopts the following amendments to the General Rules of the
Organization (GRO) and the Financial Regulations (FR):

a) The word "outline," is deleted before the words
"summary and draft Programme of Work and Budget" in the
following provisions of the General Rules of the Organization:

i) Rule XXVI, paragraph 7 (a) (ii) (GRO);

ii) Rule XXVIII, paragraph 4 (GRO).

b) Rule XXVIII (GRO) is amended by deleting Paragraph 1 and
renumbering the following paragraphs accordingly;

c) Rule XXXVII, paragraph 2 (g) (i) is amended to read as
follows:

"(i) in the light of guidance given by the Conference and
Council at its previous sessions and by regional and technical
conferences, commissions or committees, a summary Programme and
Work and Budget for consideration by the Programme and Finance
Committees, other appropriate organs of the Organization, and the
Council; and ..."

d) Financial Regulation 3.5 is amended to read as follows:

"The Director-General shall arrange for the summary
budget to be considered by the Council not less than 90 days
before the date fixed for the opening of the regular session of
the Conference".

120. The Conference noted that the proposed amendments had
been reviewed by the Committee on Constitutional and Legal
Matters (CCLM), at its Sixty-Seventh Session, and endorsed by the
Council at its Hundred and Thirteenth Session (Rome, 4-6 November
1997). The amendments had been prepared in response to the
recommendation of the Finance Committee, at its Eighty-Seventh
Session, which invited the Secretariat to elaborate detailed
proposals for the reformulation of Financial Regulation 6.9 on
the Publications Revolving Fund to allow for more flexible
utilization of income from the sale of publications and other
information materials.